XII
THE IGNORANCE OF INSTINCT
THE Sphex has just shown us with what infallible,
transcendent art she acts, guided by the unconscious
inspiration of instinct: she will now show how poor
she is in resources, how limited in intelligence, and
even illogical in cases somewhat out of her usual
line. By a strange contradiction, characteristic of the
instinctive faculties, with deep science is associated
ignorance not less deep. Nothing is impossible to
instinct, however great be the difficulty. In con-
structing her hexagonal cells with their floor of three
lozenge-shaped pieces, the bee resolves, with absolute
precision, the arduous problems of maximum and
minimum, to solve which man would need a powerful,
mathematical mind. Hymenoptera, whose larvae live
on prey, have methods in their murderous art hardly
equalled by those of a man versed in the most delicate
mysteries of anatomy and physiology. Nothing is
difficult to instinct so long as the action moves in the
unchanging groove allotted to the animal, but, again,
nothing is easy to instinct if the action deviates from
it. The very insect which amazes us and alarms us
by its high intelligence will, a moment later, astonish